"Satire is people as they are; romanticism, people as they would like to be; realism, people as they seem with their insides left out."

"A capacity for going overboard is a requisite for a full-grown mind."

"The human comedy is always tragic, but since its ingredients are always the same - dupe, fox, straight, like burlesque skits - the repetition through the ages is comedy."

"I think we will have a boy baby and he will be born on the 20th of August. Everyone else has a girl baby and at times I don't believe I should mind having a little Phyllis Dawn but Dearest wants a boy and I do."

"Yet better for one of my nature to have it that way than to have life a peaceful, placid flow of quiet contentment. I must have days of rushing excitement."

"The basis of tragedy is man's helplessness against disease, war and death; the basis of comedy is man's helplessness against vanity (the vanity of love, greed, lust, power)."

"I want so much for my lover. At night when our beds are drawn close together I waken and see his dear yellow head on the pillow - sometimes his arm thrown over on my bed - and I kiss his hand, very softly so that it will not waken him."

"A novel is like a gland pill - it nips off the cream of my hysterics and gets them running on track in a book where they belong instead of rioting all over my person."

"Joe and Jojo and I had lovely day together. I love Joe so much - more and more."